


If You Knew

by psiten



Category: Tokyo Babylon
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, M/M, Post-Tokyo Babylon, Underage Smoking, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 04:27:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5525348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psiten/pseuds/psiten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I’m just a problem that doesn’t want to be solved<br/>So could you please hold your applause</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You Knew

**Author's Note:**

  * For [empty_throne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/empty_throne/gifts).



     For at least half of every subway ride he'd taken in the last... Week? Month? ... Subaru's coat had bothered him.

     It was hard to recall when he'd first noticed that his cuffs were too short, in addition to threads wearing thin at the edges. He needed a new one. With his gloves off, unfading scars rising out of his skin like beacons that no one polite ever mentioned, it had been hard to see at first how his wrists showed. Now, at seventeen, he'd grown enough that there was no way to miss the way his sleeves left just an inch too much skin exposed to look professional, or how he couldn't close the front over his shoulders. Grandmother would stop sending him on jobs if he couldn't look respectable, and jobs were all he had. Nothing else stood a chance of taking his mind off of Sei--

      _His sister's killer._ Even jobs never really helped.

     This was the last jacket he could wear of the ones his sister had picked out for him forever ago. It seemed like so much more than a few months since he'd regained consciousness, though not quite something he could round up to a year. Still, this was the only coat he'd had that had looked like clothing, not a costume, as soon as Hokuto wasn't around to dress him.

     Grandmother would send him a coat if he asked, but there was no point in asking. There were stores all over Tokyo. He'd find a coat that fit next time he walked by one and remembered to go inside. All he needed was for it to sit on his shoulders and close halfway decently. For now, he needed to get back to his apartment, and to give a report on this afternoon's job to the representative from the Main House -- who'd be waiting in person because he wouldn't pick up the phone anymore. You never knew what was waiting on the other end of a phone. Anyone who wanted to talk to him could come see him, or wait until he was ready to find them.

     He looked up to check the station as the signal played for the doors to close. Five stops from home. But on the platform, walking toward the stairs, he saw a profile, a lighter held to a cigarette, and what looked like a glance in his direction.

     Subaru bolted through the doors before they could slam shut, pushing through the crowds toward that figure, eyes fixed on the shade of dark gray in his suit and the breadth of his shoulders so there was no chance of the man vanishing into the sea of bodies -- unless he used a spell, and if there was a spell, Subaru could hunt its traces to the ends of the earth if he needed to. If Seishirou-san had thought before that he was too gentle with his clients' problems, he'd find out soon how much had changed.

     This time...

     Taking steps two at a time, dodging around people who wouldn't move fast enough, he reached for a suit-clad elbow just before they reached the turnstile.

     "Wait!" Subaru yelled. The sound ripped out of his throat, and the break in his voice echoing through the terminal made him burn with embarrassment. His growth spurts couldn't finish too soon. The whine of his voice wavering between childish heights and new lows would probably only make Seishirou-san laugh. That man would never -- ever -- be allowed to laugh at him again.

     The figure stopped. Then meekly raised his hands, something Seishirou-san would never do, and turned around with a look in his eyes like a scared rabbit. Two whole eyes in a face Subaru didn't know, slack jaw letting a lit cigarette fall to the ground. Not again...

     "I'm sorry..." the stranger stammered. "I... don't--"

     Stepping back and bowing, Subaru said, "No, I'm sorry. I mistook you for someone." Seeing the man's nervous nod and the way he fingered his wallet, he added, "You may go."

     Another mistake. Another man who wasn't Seishirou-san after all. It didn't seem possible that the Sakurazukamori had left Tokyo completely, not when the city itself seemed to beat with his pulse. If Subaru could believe anything -- and he'd thought for all these months about what he could believe, so that he could try to tear the lies out of his heart -- it was that Seishirou-san truly _enjoyed_ Tokyo. He would always be here. Somehow, he couldn't be anywhere else, as far as Subaru could imagine. But Tokyo was so full of people. He had little hope of finding one man who had decided to disappear in a maze of faces. Hope wasn't relevant, however. As a friend of his Grandmother had once told him, some things are inevitable.

     He would find the Sakurazukamori. They were bound by more than just the marks on his hands. The time they'd meet next was not, apparently, this afternoon, but it would come. And that would be the last time. Subaru would make certain.

     For now, he watched the stranger hurry through the gate, and counted down from one hundred to give him time to get away. Nothing was more awkward than accosting a stranger, letting him go, and then finding that you were headed in the same direction. Subaru had learned that the hard way, on his way home from taking his high school withdrawal papers to his homeroom teacher. But there was no use heading back to the train, either. When he got home, he had to convince his Grandmother's intermediary that he was stable. Not a danger to those around him, nor to the family reputation. He'd heard that speech before.

     And he could feel his hands trembling in fists. Right now, he was anything but stable.

     Well, it wasn't the first time. Subaru headed out to the street, familiar enough with the neighborhood that he could find his way to a basement karaoke dive without needing to look for the sign. It wasn't the nicest sort of place, but that had its advantages, too. He pre-paid for an hour in one of the rooms, then dropped a 10,000 yen bill on top of his fee.

     "I'd like the camera off in my room," he said.

     The clerk took the bill with a nod and flipped a switch. "Number 15, back right."

     In the dark rooms, there was nothing to remind him it was daytime outside, no one watching him, no crowds fencing him in. He jammed in the numbers for a series of songs, none of which he planned to sing. But they queued up a few minutes of thundering drums, bass, and guitar that would be all anyone outside could hear if he happened to cry while he settled his nerves. He kept hoping that someday, tears would come again, and maybe this time he'd be able to cry everything out of his heart, but his eyes had been dry for so long. Recently, there was only an empty ache where his heart didn't seem to be anymore. Sometimes, the music helped with that, too. He could close his eyes and let the tinny, empty music replace the rage, the sadness, the futility.

     It wasn't that easy today. He kept seeing Seishirou-san's face in his mind's eye, a smile overlaid with a sneer. If he could, he'd tear that face out of himself with his bare hands so that, at last, he could--

     But what would he do then? Subaru couldn't imagine... life without having known Seishirou-san. How stupid could he be, to still miss someone who'd murdered, who'd lied? Yet, every time he chased Seishirou-san's shadow, he found that a little bit of his grief had eroded, but the pain of missing him never had. Somewhere in all the things that had made him want to say, "I wanted you not to hate me," there was a piece of the bastard who'd killed his sister. Something he'd always known was real. But he'd never say, "I still love him," where someone could hear. Being on the verge of admitting it now--

     Subaru slammed a fist into the padded seats. It hurt his fist, but nothing broke. No one came running to find out what was wrong, reassuring him, coddling him like some kind of shattered window glass that might fall out of its frame if jostled too hard. He could even scream if he wanted to, here, under the camouflage of loud music in a dark, locked room, and no one would try to fix him. But the noise that should have been was just as absent as his tears. He wished he could scream, or cry, but in the end he always sat here alone until the shaking stopped, and he could walk home in control of his actions.

     The ashtray had a half-smoked cigarette in it again. The first time Subaru had seen one there, he'd told himself he wouldn't touch it. He'd only needed thirty seconds to give in back then. Now, he didn't even hesitate. He kept a lighter in his coat -- for ceremonial candles, he'd told the handlers his Grandmother sent -- and he was getting used to the taste of smoke. He still coughed on the first hit, and his eyes still teared up at the corners. It was almost like being able to cry. By the time the end of the cigarette burned, Subaru could feel the smoke in his lungs, and breathe it out in a long curl. He doubted that Seishirou-san came to karaoke rooms anymore, so Subaru knew none of the butt ends he fished out of ashtrays could belong to his long lost hunter. But they all belonged to somebody who didn't give two shits about him, which seemed to be the closest he could get.

     He felt almost calm when there was nothing left to smoke.

     It didn't help. Nothing really did.

**Author's Note:**

> Summary text quoted from the lyrics of "Novocaine", by Fall Out Boy.


End file.
